Features and benefits of OWA
Before discussing the features and benefits of OWA, let’s take a
brief look at what OWA means. OWA stands for Outlook Web Access. Earlier
known as Exchange Web Connect (EWC),
it is a web mail service provided by Microsoft Exchange server 5.0 and
higher. It is a part of Microsoft Exchange server and is known as the
Outlook Web App in the Exchange Server 2010.Now that you an idea of what OWA is, let us look at the various features of OWA and benefits that you get from its use.
Features of Outlook web access
With OWA you can use and access personal distribution lists that is stored in the Contacts. You will have to update your contacts, if you see any kind of blank listing. This will also help you to show the contacts in a correct manner. If you want your OWA to check, your personal contact prior to checking the list of global addresses, then you will have to make some changes.
There are also highly advanced features which you get with OWA but only if you are using the 5.0 version of the Internet Explorer or higher version. These features mainly include a drag- and-drop editing and a preview pane.
OWA fully backs the in-built items such as appointments, contacts, meeting requests, posts and messages.
It helps you to access calendar items and contacts even from public folders
Benefits of OWA
Appointment scheduler, an innovative function of the OWA, eases the
process of giving out invitations for functions and meetings. When the
recipient agrees to visit the meeting or function, the OWA on its own
adds the meeting place and time to every OWA calendar. Not only this,
the OWA also sends a reminder to the recipient as the date of the
meeting or functions comes nearer.Another benefit of OWA is that it is Out of Office Assistant. This assistant sends an auto reply to all your e-mails when you are not around. Furthermore, you can also store notes and appointments in its daily planner and calendar. It also provides an easy and quick accessibility to the entire email system of your company.
These are some of the features and benefits of the Outlook Web Access (OWA). Hope you now have a fair idea about this useful webmail service.
OWA, its Features and Benefits
There was the Exchange Web Connect, then Outlook Web Access, and eventually Outlook Web App. Microsoft's reluctant embrace of web-mail services had a rocky start, but it did not prevent this extension from stealing a place in the very core of Exchange Servers. Of course, you won't know it from OWA's web interface, and its uncanny resemblance to the Outlook client.
Briefly
put, you use OWA when you don't have access to a desktop application of
Outlook, which is an increasingly common possibility in these nomadic
days. In addition to email (it supports S/MIME encryption), OWA can hook
you up with your calendars, contacts and a whole string of whatnots. At
the moment, you can read, but cannot write documents in SharePoint and
UNC shares. So whereas Exchange server functions in its closed
ecosystem, OWA is its extrovert doppelgänger, giving users access to the
same Exchange Server framework via an internet connection and a web
browser.Since Exchange 2000, OWA has forked into Premium and Light versions. From Exchange Server 2007, the UI implemented search functions in both versions to a respectable degree. But until 2010, full functionality was reserved for Internet Explorer; Microsoft wisely let it go in the end, so Safari, Firefox and Chrome users can expect virtually identical treatment. Presumably, the proliferation of OWA/Exchange alternatives nudged the executives' mind in a more generous direction. Hosted options abound, but so are newer options for local implementations, such as Kolab, Scalix, and Zimbra.
So what's new in OWA 2010? Well it's only in the latest release that OWA really measures up in terms of features and ease of configuration.
It's never just about the email. Granted, in itself it's already an inviolable artery of many businesses. But clients, web-based or otherwise, are expected to assist in managing the torrent of information and organize them for easy retrieval. When they first came up with the idea of bundling calendars and contacts, it might have been a throwaway freebie. But now countless are sucked into a downward spiral of dependency: you use it at work until you need it for work
.
OWA worked on the conversation view. This pastiche of a Usenet front-end groups all the messages on a particular topic into a thread. It's nothing new in itself, but its introduction someone feels like a Marmite debate: people love it or hate it. Happily, you can switch it off (Arrange by > Conversations > Unshow Messages in Conversations).
The ignore option is available in both Outlook 2010 and the OWA. If you cannot stand certain mailing lists to which you're obliged to belong, you can now ignore the conversation.
One great crux amongst web-mail users is the propensity for others to forward leviathan emails within emails, with utter disregard for the tortuous lull in loading times at the other end (this is a very, very big issue: 1.7 billion people have access to the internet, but only half a billion have gone broadband in 2010). For the lost billion, as well as for people who write pages after pages of rambling emails, Microsoft now allows you to forward them as attachments.
Since we're feeling retro, let us peruse some more exotic relics, such as delivery reports. They used to be a simple affair: deliver onwards, or bounce and return a humble notice of failure. Then of course delivery receipts and return receipts came along, albeit never universally deployed. As a matter of fact, many ISP snub them because spammer can exploit them for verification and bring down spoofed emails to boot. OWA manages to revive all that, though of course not on an infrastructural level, but by displaying them conspicuously when you select the delivery report option on the action menu.
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